- Key insight: Learn how people- and design-led research transforms HR strategy and workplace productivity.
- What's at stake: Space, tech and inclusion choices affect talent retention and competitive culture.
- Expert quote: "Deep listening and people-system analysis drive HR strategy," says Donna Flynn,
Bullets generated by AI with editorial review
Donna Flynn's path to people leader is paved with an anthropology doctorate and roles in research and design. The
"I was coming out of 18 years of doing research and design on people at work," says Flynn, who previously worked at Microsoft and Sapient before joining Steelcase in 2011. "When I saw the CPO job open up, I thought, I could change my lens from making our customers' lives better through the products and experiences we deliver and apply it to our own people."
In her first role at Steelcase, Flynn led a team that
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Flynn's understanding of office design as an integral part of workplace productivity and culture was recently recognized with the remodeling of her own team's office space at the company's global headquarters in Grand Rapids.
"We experimented with one of our new inclusive-design processes to make sure that everyone had a voice, and we engaged our community to come in and do inclusive design for physical disabilities, neurodiversity and socioeconomic diversity," Flynn says. "My team has this beautiful new space, and they're now talking to customers all the time about the power of space in the culture of an organization."
Flynn shares how her academic background influences her HR role, and the programs, benefits and updates making a positive impact on Steelcase employees.
How have your professional experiences shaped your leadership style today?
I use my foundational skills as an anthropologist every day: Deep listening, analyzing [people] systems and identifying opportunities for change. My leadership style is highly collaborative, and I really strive to engage my leaders to give input and participate in setting our direction and our strategy. When I took this role, that was new to them — none of them had really been given that opportunity to take a step back and look holistically across all of the HR practices and centers of excellence that we have.
Now, over the last five years, we've been really focused together on what our shared priorities are, and how we can say no to things that maybe, historically, we didn't know how to say no to. There are so many asks coming at us as a team from the company, but we have gotten much better at setting those priorities.
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What are some of the priorities you've been focusing on?
Improving and modernizing our HR technologies — we are now in the midst of migrating to a new human resources information system. Building this foundation of technology is going to give us many more capabilities for analytics, AI, leveraging data and creating personalized experiences. That in itself is going to support the well-being of my team because they're going to [have more] efficiency and effectiveness with the new system.
We've also made a lot of progress on our culture; we have invested heavily in building inclusive practices for all employees to have a stronger sense of belonging. We have redesigned our employee resource groups — we call them business inclusion groups — and we went from one or two when I started in this role to around 15 of those globally, and they're very vibrant and bring lots of energy to all of our offices around the world.
And [there is an ongoing focus on] employee well-being. A decade before COVID, when I was leading the team on the future of work, we did really extensive research, laid out a framework and started implementing some things internally, [such as] a well-being navigator, and we opened up a well-being center. We have a pretty robust employee listening system, including pulse surveys, culture surveys, and an integrity hotline, and we're experimenting with what we call a burnout survey, where we ask 'How are you feeling this quarter or this month? Are you feeling overwhelmed or unsustainable?' We strive to have a culture of raise-your-hand and speak up and let us know if you're having trouble, because we as leaders want to help you with that.
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What has been an especially meaningful project for your team since you started as CPO, and how has this enabled them to function at a higher, more integrated level?
The redesign of our own team space in our global headquarters. We wanted to bring global talent from behind the curtain and put them right in the customer and employee footpath, and integrate them into the flow of the company.
Post-COVID, every single customer coming to campus wanted to meet with me or one of my HR leaders. It got overwhelming, and I had to train HR people on how to have customer conversations about getting people back to the office, building culture through space, how we were retaining talent, and how to think about having a voice in redesigning our space to really amplify our talent value.
Our team feels really comfortable [having these conversations] now [that they occupy] their own space and have their own stories of, here's how we collaborate with each other better, here's how we think the space reflects the culture, here are the different ways in which I can find privacy when I need it, or the different ways I can be creative with my teammates. It's really empowered them to feel like they are part of our business and driving our core business value proposition.
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